Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Can an Arabic music video possibly have everything a stereotypical male needs while breaking so many laws? Yes, it can!

This new music video by newcomer Mostafa Mahfouz is in a league of its own. The artist delivers a great break-up song, and despite it’s a break-up song, it comes across more uplifting than bitter with a soulful voice and just the right mixture of sadness and wisdom that hits all the right notes. But just because I want to hear more of him, doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to see more of him. The storyline for the music video is fairly simple: you’re a young Arab man running a gas station (imagine that) without much business and your employees are getting restless and demanding to get paid.

Oh, and did I mention that your girlfriend has just pulled up in her new convertible and is also asking “Where’s the dough, Habibi”? It also doesn’t help that you have a dirty, sweaty scruffy-looking guy with a gut working for you on the side of the road, holding up a sign that says: Buy one get one free! Sounds like you are caught between a rock and a fat place.

But no need to worry: according to this music video you have a solution. Go to a modeling agency, discriminate against the Indian looking models and go for the exotic Arab-Russian combo models. Take the ladies back to your gas station, have one of them wear a pair of “shorts” and assign her to the “hold the poster on the side of the street” post and watch the guys just start rolling in! You then take the rest of your girls and have them dance around the cars, the bikes, the customers and even yourself in a more than seductive manner.

Word in the form of text messages will then start to circulate about the freak show and the babes who are putting on the expo at the gas station. Congratulations! Now you’ve gone viral, because scantily clad women who dance mean more customers, more random dudes in business suites dancing in their cars, and more money in your pocket!

And, if your girlfriend comes back, you can make her jealous by all those hot babes dancing around you. Of course, you will also get to see some cool cars and badass Hell’s Angels types, but hey, it’s all part of the job as the Pimp boss that you literally are. I’m sure that somewhere a guy who was promised 72 virgins is sitting in a dark corner envious of Mahfouz and his entourage of gorgeous women. No, this music video was not released in 1920; this clip is brand spanking new.

Here’s why the music video is problematic: in approximately four minutes, the music video embarks on a parade of illegal workplace practices like ethnic and weight discrimination, creating a hostile work environment, employee safety concerns, business domestic disturbance, defamation, disturbing the peace, human trafficking, workers compensation issues, car assault, racketeering, artificial chest hair exposure . . . is there anything else I might have missed?

Also, please pay special attention to the break dancer and the man jumping from a convertible car wearing a hot pair of sneakers and the top-of-the-line phones found in this and many parts of the Arab world.